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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

This week, Birmingham Youth Serve Urban Service Camp assisted The Gardens on two gardens projects. On Tuesday, approximately 15 young leaders from local high schools worked in the Jemison Lily Garden with City of Birmingham Horticulturist, Amanda Clarke. Wednesday, 11 more students worked with Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ staff in Barber Alabama Woodlands spreading mulch, as well as removing a good bit of unwanted plant material.

Thank you Birmingham Youth Serve for partnering with us once again. We’re eager to see you in October for our Fall Plant Sale!

Young Professionals from Birmingham Rotaract Club and Parker High School students join forces to assist The Gardens

On Saturday, The Gardens had the pleasure of having Birmingham Rotaract Club along with students from Parker High School work with on two needed service projects. Approximately 30 students and young professionals assisted in re-mulching the Barber Alabama Woodlands interpretive trails and laying Woven Groundcover Fabric down in the Herb Army lathe house. Both groups volunteer their time and muscle for 3 hours to complete both needed projects.

It was a great day for “Growing Through Yoga,” a Children’s Summer Camp, at The Gardens today! Campers have been on a yoga adventure as they grow like trees, flowers, butterflies and other garden creatures. They are learning to build strength and balance in yoga poses inspired by the landscape and architecture of The Gardens while calming and focusing their minds with nature walks and meditations. Yoga games and special crafts like bubble snakes, herbal sugar scrubs, garden dream catchers and more are making it even more fun leaving campers feeling joyful and refreshed! Stay tuned for more classes such as this coming up this year!

Recently, I was part of a group who went on a field trip to the Bibb County Glades, located near Montevallo, Alabama. Described variously as “a botanical lost world” and “a botanical wonder,” as well as other similarly impressive titles, this site is not at all what comes to mind when I hear the word “glade.” I pictured something more like the Everglades, a big grassy wetland broken by the occasional tree hammock. The word glade, however, means an open area surrounded by trees. Much of the Bibb County Glades are comprised of rocky, arid, grass-and-wildflower-covered rocky outcrops. What makes these glades distinctly different is the type of rock of which they are composed, Ketona dolomite.

Dolomite is a type of limestone and this particular type of it is unusually pure and contains large percentages of calcium and magnesium. Magnesium, in high concentrations, can be toxic to many species of plants; this is why the glades are populated by many unique species that have adapted to living in that particular type of limestone. They thrive here without competition from more typical species, which would normally populate the area. Growing on these glades are several rare species, including one third of all Alabama endemic plant species – and eight species unknown to science before their discovery in the 1900s.

After trekking through some steep open terrain, we ventured into the adjacent woodlands where it was noticeably cooler. We hiked along a stretch of the Little Cahaba River and then deeper still into a forested area along a small stream. Here, it became more like walking through a temperate rainforest with lush green vegetation spreading prolifically in every direction. Following the stream, we eventually came to a spot with a particularly interesting botanical inhabitant, one that has yet to be named and described. Its temporary name is Trautvetteria sp. nov.(tassel-rue), and will be definitively named by whomever first describes it botanically.

Finally, we packed up and drove to a nature preserve along the Cahaba River, where we hoped to see Hymenocallis coronaria (Cahaba lily) flowering. And flowering they were! It’s a spectacular sight to see an expanse of showy white flowers bobbing daintily over the river waters in which it grows. Visiting these sites makes it clearly evident why they are described as some of Alabama’s natural wonders.

From sunny glades to shaded woodlands, it was quite a day. Exploring several of Alabama’s ecosystems in rapid succession can offer a newfound appreciation for our state’s biodiversity and unique natural character.

On Wednesday, July 9, Daniel and Andrew McCurry led “A Change of Scenery,” a Lunch and Learn event which showed participants how to make their landscape fit their current lifestyle, physical needs and desires. A new Lunch and Learn series will begin on July 23 with “GrandScapes: Playful Gardening” led by Vasha Rosenblum. Sallie Lee leads “The Buzz on Pollinators” on August 6, while James Horton leads “Porous, Permeable and Pervious” on August 13.

All Lunch and Learn sessions take place from 11:30 – 12:30 p.m., and they’re all FREE! Bring your lunch and we’ll provide the drinks and desserts! Make plans to join our next series!

On Sunday, June 1, I had the opportunity to canoe down the Cahaba River with friends from Birmingham Botanical Gardens to the largest population of the Cahaba lily (Hymenocallis coronaria) on earth. The Cahaba lily is an aquatic, white flowering perennial found growing nestled in between shoals in the Cahaba River. The Cahaba lilies are very specialized in their habitat and the type of rock they grow in, which makes them so rare. The rocks are pliable enough to allow the roots to penetrate through them for easy establishment. Dr. Randy Haddock, field director of the Cahaba River Society, demonstrated how to extract nectar from the Cahaba lily using a small, plastic capillary tube. He instructed us to place the tube deep into the corolla of the flower. Once the tube was inserted, we gently placed the bloom upside down and pressed the nectar into capillary tube. The nectar was somewhat sweet, followed by a strange aftertaste. Everyone except me seemed to enjoy the taste because I expected a honeysuckle-like taste. Randy also showed us different organisms found in the river, such as crayfish and common aquatic insect larvae. This was my first canoe trip; traveling downstream was a lot easier than traveling upstream, but I will look forward to experiencing canoeing again.

The following Monday, June 2, Mitchell Vaughan, Alex Dumont and I were given a great tour of The Archives and Rare Book Room at The Library at The Gardens by Archivist Jason Kirby and Director of Library Services Hope Long. It was interesting to see actual historical and botanical documentation dating back to the sixteenth century. Included in the collection were also rare maps, gardens plans and antique seed catalogs. Jason and Hope were very knowledgeable of the library and offered help if we needed guidance on future projects.

On Tuesday, June 3, I went to visit Southern Organics in Columbiana, Alabama, which company specializes in aquaponics, the process of recycling fish waste for fertilizing vegetables. It was great to witness them experimenting with aquaponics in the early stages of their business. The warehouse consisted of tanks where they produced tilapia. The staff explained how they converted fish waste into useful sources of nitrogen for the plants. Next to the tanks were experimental stations, where different vegetables were tested before being grown in the production greenhouse. Above the stations were artificial light sources for the plants to use in photosynthesis. The plants were transplanted into Styrofoam blocks, where the roots grew though holes into a liquid base medium. For biological control of insect pests, beneficial ladybugs were used. Southern Organics not only produces fish, but also vegetables. Their plan is to expand in supplying organic vegetables to stores.

Our last field trip for the week consisted of going to Hale County, Alabama on June 4 where we traveled through the woods to view a rare fern population. Kaul Wildflower Garden Curator John Manion returned a fern back to its habitat where he had been growing it on a petri dish in the micro-propagation lab at The Gardens. It was also the first time that he brought a rare fern back to its native habitat in hopes of increasing the population. Preserving the ferns and their habitat is vital to their survival.

On Thursday, June 5, I enjoyed working with Amanda Clark in the vegetable garden. I never had much hands-on experience with vegetable gardening at Mississippi State, but Amanda is very knowledgeable about cultural practices. She showed me how to prune, sucker and train tomato plants on a trellis system properly. In addition, she explained the importance of composting and how one should turn the pile every other day in order to speed up the process of decomposition.

Although I have experienced a lot of things this week, it only covered a small portion of this internship. I am very excited to participate in many other activities this summer.

On Wednesday, June 25, Arnie Rutkis led a Lunch and Learn at The Gardens titled “The Dirt on Soil.” His talk focused on the importance to soil when gardening and landscaping on personal and commercial levels. He focused on how human beings and nature impact our soil, debunked the myth that clay soil is bad for your yard and encouraged the crowd to allow nature to run its course, putting leaves ina compost area rather than bagging them up and shipping them off. He also talked about new ways to add nutrients to your soil using logs.

Our next Lunch and Learn is right around the corner! On July 9, Daniel and Andrew McCurry will share “A Change of Scenery.” Participants will discover how to make their lifestyle fit their current lifestyle, physical needs and desires. And it’s FREE! Bring your lunch, and we’ll provide the drinks and desserts. It’s in the Auditorium from 11:30 – 12:30. We’re eager to see you at The Gardens!

Su Reid-St. John and daughter Zoe continued their weekend series on container gardening. Last Saturday’s focus was on simple watering strategies to keep your container plants looking vibrant through the up coming dog days of summer. Su demonstrated the effective uses of having a drip irrigation system.

Container plants are like family pets: the more attention you give them, the better they behave. But it’s not always easy to give plants the care they need, particularly when hot or dry weather means daily watering.

A simple, automated drip-irrigation system, which applies water slowly and directly to roots, frees you from hand-watering and helps eliminate harmful fluctuations in soil moisture. Plants respond by growing full and lush. And you’ll never have to drag around another hose. For more information on using an automated drip-irrigation system check out http://bonnieplants.com/library/drought-busting-techniques/.

On Friday, May 23, I accompanied Kaul Wildflower Curator John Manion and my two fellow interns on a visit to the University of Montevallo’s Ebenezer Swamp Ecological Preserve on Spring Creek in Shelby County. The Swamp is a 60 acre tract of natural wetland, located near the University of Montevallo campus and used by the university for education and research. It’s part of the Cahaba River Watershed, which brings us to an interesting distinction: that between a swamp and a bog. Swamps form in the basins and floodplains surrounding rivers, where river water flows into lower, shallower areas and eventually flows back into another river system. Bogs are raised areas of stagnant water, which accumulate from precipitation and are held by the high peat content of the surrounding soil. Unlike swamps, true bogs seldom have regular inflow or drainage. Swamps also differ from bogs in that they are able to support large hardwood species. Some of the dominant species in Ebenezer Swamp are Nyssa aquatica (water tupelo), Acer rubrum (red maple), Magnolia virginiana (sweet bay magnolia) and Platanus occidentalis (sycamore). Numerous other interesting plant species also occur there, some rare and some endangered.

Traversing the swamp is possible on a boardwalk, built and maintained by the university, which meanders gently across the length of the swamp. Walking along, I sensed the primordial nature of the place, from it having existed undisturbed for centuries before human encroachment. The swamp once came under threat when plans were made to drain the area to make way for a quarry. Fortunately, through legal action by the university, that plan was cancelled. Macknally Land Design subsequently created the master plan for the development of the swamp.

Ebenezer Swamp must be experienced in person if its beauty and serenity are to be fully appreciated. For some, the word “swamp” conjures images of murky, tannin-stained mires, but the sight of the bright dappled light in Ebenezer Swamp couldn’t be further from this. The waters teem with fish, mussels, and crayfish, all readily visible from the comfort of the boardwalk. Visitors are able to observe up-close, an array of lush plant life. Alabama residents, owe it to themselves to visit this natural state wonder at least once, probably to return again and again… as I will.